Well, I think the point I was making about the term working class being much less relevant was really with respect to the post war context of mass, organised labour. With mines, docks, automotive, shipbuilding etc no longer the industries they were.
This is not to deny the inequities of current conditions for some or indeed many, but such people no longer have strength of organised labour behind them and the trade union movement is not the force, for both good and ill, that it was.
A concerning issue to me is the disparity in earnings between the highest and lowest paid, particularly in the context of living and housing costs. My grandfather was a gas fitter and kept his bike in the hall of his terraced Victorian house in south London. That house now sold a couple of years ago for £1.6m, I somehow doubt to another gas man. This is very much a concern of the conscious capitalism movement who advocate no more than a 20x gap between the highest and lowest paid. How much is a senior manager really worth?
|
